She threw me a worried look over her shoulder as we entered, but then she shouted for Maryam. Even I could tell the trailer was empty.
“Staying out all night is not enough for panic. Leave her a note with your phone number,” I suggested. “Tell her you’re going home, and she should do the same. I doubt JACAD will survive much longer, so she might as well leave now.”
“I don’t like it that she’s disappeared. It’s not like her,” Julie said, pulling items out of cupboards and from inside the bench seats.
I put my panic alert button on hold. Julie came first. “Is your phone completely disabled? You can call her and arrange to meet her in town.” I found a box and started adding the items she retrieved into it.
“My phone is bugged,” she said with surprising vehemence. “I have quit using it.”
Argghhh, panic alert flashing. What on earth had she got herself into? I needed her out of here yesterday. “Keep it turned off. We can unbug it. Leave your number. Save the burner for emergencies. Zander will be out here looking for us if we don’t return soon. I practically had to tie him to a chair.”
I began throwing things into her boxes as fast as I could.
“Zander is really here?” she asked, finally showing excitement. “He came for me?”
Relieved to have a less stressful subject, I started on the suitcase. “What did you think he would do when you didn’t answer his messages? I think you took years off his life. I’m just glad he had the sense to come to us. I wish I’d known you were here sooner.”
She turned and hugged me. It was awkward. She was over half a foot taller and I didn’t do hugs. But I patted her shoulder and appreciated the gesture.
I had my toddlers back, and my heart felt whole for the first time in forever—although in this family, that might last all of ten minutes. I glanced out the window to be certain no one was watching.
“I didn’t know you were here!” Julie cried. “I had hoped to look for our grandfather. My father left us his address. But then so much started happening. . .” She gestured helplessly and returned to shoving clothes in a suitcase. “It is amazing to see you again! I didn’t think you would remember us.”
“I doubt a day went by that I didn’t think of you,” I said gruffly, hiding my reaction. I quit crying long, long ago, but having my family together again. . . cracked the bomb shelter I’d built around my heart.
“My family still speaks of you with awe,” she said with a laugh. “You must come home with me sometime and meet them. I cannot believe you came for me! Are you really a lawyer?”
I didn’t even have a high school diploma, since we never stayed in one place for me to graduate. I had my GED and my online courses, but a lawyer? In another lifetime. “’Fraid not,” I admitted. “I lie for a living.”
She looked up from her packing to stare. “That can’t be true. You are an honest person.”
I checked cabinets for anything that looked as if it didn’t belong. “What on earth makes you say that? I’m unfortunately like our mother. I am whatever I need to be at the moment.”
“I don’t know our mother, but it’s not you.” She shook her head. She wore her tight curls a little longer than Zander’s, but not by much. Her head and cheekbones were so elegantly sculpted that they didn’t require the disguise of hair. “Perhaps you lie to others, but not to family.”
I considered that. “It’s okay to lie to others if I don’t lie to family?”
“And friends,” she added firmly. “With those close to us, we must be honest, or we cannot trust each other.”
That set a standard I couldn’t promise to keep, but I appreciated the thought.
“Where are we going?” she asked as she zipped her suitcase.
“To our grandfather’s house. He died last spring and left it to all of us.” Already, I was lying. Or half-lying by insinuating the house actually belonged to us. It was so much more convenient than long, involved explanations.
A variety of expressions crossed her face. Unlike Zander, she couldn’t conceal an emotion if she tried.
“I am sorry to hear about our grandfather, but I am very surprised that he left Zander and me anything. He did not know us. We live half a world away. He had no reason to even acknowledge our existence since our parents did not marry. Are you sure he meant us?”
I hefted the box and let her haul the suitcases. “His grandchildren covers all of us. He knew what he was doing. There are many complications still, but we’ll work our way through them. I just want you to recognize the house as yours as much as it is any of ours.”
A single home for all our family had been a goal of mine since Patra was born, and I was old enough to change her diapers as we escaped still another war-torn town on a train in the dark of night. I doubted anyone understood my degree of determination.
Juliana stopped to scribble a note to her friend and laid it in the middle of the table, firmly held down by salt and pepper shakers. “I do not know what I will do with myself if the school closes. My degree in art does me little good.”
“A degree in anything shows that you have a well-rounded education and the ability to work hard for what you want. It’s worth a great deal,” I argued as we left the trailer and locked it behind us.
I checked my watch—just after noon. If we could make it out of here without interruption, the car should have us home before EG.
I scanned the muddy field between us and the gate. Police cars everywhere, yellow crime scene tape tied to winter-bare trees in the distance, a few uniforms blocking the road. I’d called the limo in light of Julie’s urgent message but ordered it to park out of sight. I texted the driver to pull up now.
Graham’s luxuries were corrupting me beyond redemption. I punched in a call to Patra as we trudged toward the gate. Now that Juliana was safe, I was free to wreak havoc.
“News flash,” I said to her voice mail. “Talk to Zander, then start checking into JACAD and Reverend Arden. I’ve got Juliana. See you at dinner.”
“How is the reverend, do you know?” Julie asked anxiously when I stored the phone in my pocket.
“I’d only just heard about him when we received your message. If anyone can find out, we can, but I want you safe under our roof before we start making inquiries. If you want honesty, you'll have more than you can handle once we’re there. You’re not going to like it.”
“Everyone treats me as if I’m a fragile fairy,” she said with a hint of hurt. “I am not. I set up those cameras on my own. I knew when my phone wasn’t right. I wanted to find out what was going on by myself.”
“And we respected that,” I reminded her as a policeman blocked our way. I flashed my fake lawyer business card. “Detective Hobbs said we could leave,” I said in my best voice of authority.
He made a call, then opened the gate to let us pass. People had begun to gather outside. I figured some might even be reporters, but the limo rolled through, nudging them from the road. Sam, Graham’s driver, leapt out to load our box and suitcases, and I shoved Juliana inside before most of the lookie-loos thought to whip out cameras or snap phones.
As the limo rolled back to the highway, I pulled out my phone, connected with my cloud account, and produced the screensaver photo Graham had sent. “I don’t know if you can recognize anyone on this small screen, but do you see your friend Esther in this image?”
She enlarged the image and steadily worked her way around the buffet table. She punched some buttons and handed back a cropped image of a chestnut-colored chignon. The head was slightly turned so I could see a rather emphatic chin and tan complexion. What I noticed most was that this was the pretty young thing George Paycock, the Embezzler, had his arm wrapped around.
“That could be Esther,” Julie said. “She wore her hair like that once when she went to a concert. The coloring looks right. Why?”
I fought a nervous shiver, saved the image, and opened it back to the larger one. “Because two of the women we’ve identified in this photo w
ere JACAD students. One of them died. The other is living with an older, wealthy man, one of the development’s supporters. And you’re telling me Esther and maybe your roommate are missing. As far as I can determine, a large number of the men around this table are contributors to Jesus World.”
She took the phone back and studied the image some more. “I did not accept the one invitation I was offered to the theater, but the other students sought them eagerly. They would tell of the concerts, but no one mentioned parties.” She zoomed in again. “But I think I recognize three, maybe four of these women as students I have seen. This is a small school, but our classrooms are scattered, and the second year students are in different offices around town. I’ve probably talked to them in the canteen.”
“What about the men? Did you ever meet any of the development’s sponsors?”
She shook her head and handed the phone back. “No, never. I do not like parties. I am most surprised that these students in the photo owned gowns and jewels.”
“I suspect that the men bought them what they wanted,” I said cynically, returning the phone to my bag. “I think it’s a good thing you don’t like parties.”
She made an inelegant noise. “I am not white enough for parties like that. I cannot pass for European. Even Maryam, who is half English, half Pakistani, was not invited, even to a concert, until recently. I thought at first I was being ignored because I had not worked hard enough. Now I see the truth.”
I frowned, trying to work that out. “The students here come from all around the world. They are of every color, and from what I have seen, they are all beautiful. You are saying only the white ones were invited to concerts and parties?”
“Only the whiter women. There are no male students at that table.” She leaned wearily against the headrest. “I made videos to promote the park which I’ve been told are very successful—possibly because everyone here is photogenic. I had not given that much thought until now. I just thought I’d been lucky in my choice of shots, but you’re right. In all my classes, there is probably not one person who would not look good on camera. It probably helps in fundraising.”
As did showing off the students at concerts and dinners, I thought cynically. And girls willing to be used in that way . . . were either naïve or looking for a sugar daddy.
“So whoever chose students to study or work at Jesus World did not choose by color but looks, and one hopes, by education and inclination?”
She nodded agreement. “Their applications were very rigorous, which is why I did not think so much about how we looked. All of us are college graduates, many of us at the top of our classes, all recommended by our churches and communities. This is a very small but prestigious program.”
“How long has the program been in place?”
She wrinkled her nose—Magda’s patrician nose—in thought. “Reverend Arden’s church was building schools in our village when I was very young, so at least for fifteen years, probably longer, well before Jesus World existed. I know the workers who built the school in Zimbabwe that I worked on weren’t beautiful. What would be the purpose?”
“I think the park makes the difference. Whoever is sponsoring it hopes beautiful people will help raise funds and work at the park after it opens,” I suggested. “They want good-looking representatives for marketing purposes.”
“All good Christians are handsome?” she asked in disbelief. “Is such blatant discrimination not illegal in this country?”
“Discriminating by religion is illegal, so they’ll have a tough time working around that law when it comes time to hire—another good reason to have all of you on board already. Hiring based on looks. . . that’s not illegal, unless it’s obviously race, which it isn’t. I’d like to talk to whoever did the student screening, but that’s only because I’m nosy. I can’t see how it affects anything else.”
“I should have found work in the administration department instead of marketing and learned more about their acceptance policies,” she said with a sigh.
“Then you wouldn’t have had those camera images. And you had no way of knowing the reverend would be shot and that you’d have to leave so precipitously. One thing at a time. Once you tell me as much as you know about Esther, we’ll dig around and find out more.”
“Do you think I am the only one on the entire campus who did not understand that rich old men might gift us with gowns and jewels if we smiled on them?” she asked.
“Did Rebecca and Melissa and Esther and the others you recognized in the photo know each other?” I asked, guessing the answer just from her frown.
“They were second year students. This is not a university. There is a limited number of classes for learning how to build schools, depending on which direction one takes, so yes, they would have shared a class or two and known each other.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. “I cannot accept that Reverend Arden knew we were being used in this way. He kept telling me that hard workers ought to be rewarded with occasional time off. The office never offered me tickets, as they did the others. He was the one who offered me tickets.”
Chapter 14
Fortunately, we arrived home before EG. Magda was front and center when I entered with Juliana. Rather than confront her with my suspicions, I left the twins happily hugging each other and chattering with their new-found mother while, duty done, I trudged upstairs to Graham’s lair.
“If the cops are any good, they’ll find Juliana’s cameras,” I told Graham as I entered. “We need to send them the clips so they can locate the bodies.”
“Done,” he said curtly. “I’ve moved her video cloud account and disconnected any trace of the old one. All the cameras feed into CAD’s storage now.”
I’d stripped off my hat and coat as I climbed the stairs, but I hadn’t returned to my room to deposit them yet. Now that I’d done all I knew to do, I felt as if the entire weight of the world was on my shoulders as I turned to leave. I had my family under my roof, but that didn’t make the cruel world outside go away.
“Joshua Arden’s father is a decent man,” Graham said. He still hadn’t turned away from his monitors.
He did not feed me information without reason. I dropped the heavy coat on the floor and sank down on it, resting my forehead against my knees. “Do I really want to hear this?”
He actually swung his desk chair around to look at me. Graham is everything in a man that I want. The electricity between us is lightning bolt shocking. That he actually dragged his OCD self away from his monitors should have straightened my spine and made me preen.
But I was having heavy-duty flashbacks to my Magda-dominated youth, and it was all I could do to resist the urge to find a cave somewhere and pull the mountain down around my introverted self. The downside of one of my Magda-like performances is total energy drainage. I needed to rest and regroup.
“I grudgingly admit that our working together has proved beneficial,” he said.
That shocked me out of my foul mood. My head shot up, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you looking for a fight? Because I could kick you six ways from Sunday right now.”
I swear, his eyes crinkled with what might have been laughter. Maybe. Possibly. But he hid it quickly and returned to growling.
“Magda has a long-standing feud with General Defense Industries.”
I reeled that name through my encyclopedic brain and recalled it as the company Georgie the Embezzler had hoodwinked. It also resonated with some deeper memory I couldn’t pull up. They probably had a CEO in Paul Rose’s cabal of powerful lunatics.
“Gun makers,” I dutifully replied. “She hates them all.”
“They killed our fathers. She has reason. Once upon a time, Reverend William Arden—Josh’s father—advocated gun control. From the power of his pulpit, he condemned weapons manufacturers for creating a culture of world violence. He started a movement that actually put gun control laws on the desks of Congress.”
“Before my tim
e,” I suggested.
I’d have to look up William Arden. My isolated childhood hadn’t contained computers or even televisions most of the time. I missed a lot of pop culture references. I only knew Brody Devlin, my father, from microfiche newspaper articles I hunted when I had the chance.
“Ancient history,” he agreed. “Our fathers laughed at him.”
“Negotiating peace was not a concept most angry young men, can relate to.” I’d been in war zones. I’d seen the fury of frustration fueled by testosterone and fed by politicians with agendas. My father’s generation wasn’t the first or the last to believe violence would cure the ills of the world.
I had only a vague understanding of my father’s history. I hadn’t fully realized Graham’s father was a part of his cadre of angry young men. I knew Graham had been my grandfather’s protégé, so it made sense that his father and my father had been in cahoots in some manner. And presumably, Sean O’Herlihy, Patra’s lover and a man almighty curious about our family, had a father who had been in the same gang—the name was a dead giveaway.
“Our fathers related to peace well enough,” Graham corrected. “They simply thought it had to come at the point of a gun since the ballot box was loaded. But by that time, everyone in Ireland was tired of the fighting, and our fathers were willing to negotiate—from a position of strength.”
“While this is all very interesting, why are we discussing it now?” I crossed my legs on my faux fur coat and studied Graham’s scarred face. He’d been through hell. I was inclined to believe he was on the side of the good guys, but in our world, good was a lighter shade of gray.
“Because William Arden was a brilliant, determined man who threatened GenDef’s bottom line in every way he could. Your father was a famous, fiery orator. He raised sympathy for the plight of the Irish Catholics while he was raising funds to secretly import weapons for a terrorist organization. Money, weapons, and international sympathy for his cause would give Brody the strength to return to Ireland and make demands.”
Twin Genius Page 12